ABSTRACT
The death of Cromwell on 3 September 1658 saw the accession of his son Richard as Lord Protector, from which office he was pushed by a strange alliance of New Model commanders and former Rumpers, who restored the Rump Parliament in reduced form. From the defeat at Worcester through to Cromwell’s death, royalist plots aimed at restoring Charles II to his throne had proved full of high ideals and little else: yet with the move against Richard Cromwell from within, some royalists entertained hopes of a successful rising in association with Presbyterian leaders in England. This alliance, the Great Trust, sought to create a far-reaching series of conspiracies and risings to topple a decidedly shaky government, and from March 1659 agents were hard at work. John Mordaunt, the King’s most able conspirator, made the acquaintance of Sir George Booth, a parliamentarian commander in Cheshire during the first civil war, but long a bitter critic of the purge of Parliament in 1648, the execution of the King, and the Protectorate. Booth was to be one leader among many in a planned series of risings in the summer of 1659 that would, it was hoped, prove impossible for the New Model to deal with. Foreign involvement was ruled out, though France and Spain were willing to aid Charles II in a limited way. Booth in Cheshire was to be the leader of one of a number of diversionary risings, whilst the real action was planned for the West Country around Bristol, and East Anglia around Lynn. The government’s intelligence service continued to function, however, and in July there were a series of arrests of prominent royalist and Presbyterian leaders. In the event, the risings were called off, but Booth, who had already raised men and created a reasonably effective association within Cheshire, received word of the cancellation only one day before the proposed rising was to take place.
